Category Archives: Taxation

UPDATE II: The Brothers Tsarnaev: ‘A Product Of An American Upbringing’

Education, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Propaganda, Russia, Taxation, Terrorism

Whereas America’s media will shed mostly darkness on the “apparently” mysterious motivation behind the ruthless, savage attack committed, in Boston, last week by two naturalized American Muslims—a Chechen leader has some interesting thoughts about these homegrown terrorists:

[The] Tsarnaevs … were raised in the United States, and their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. It is necessary to seek the roots of this evil in America.

The man has a point: A liberal, lax progressive education, emphasizing the wickedness of the West, the hollowness of its ways, and the righteousness of its “victims” does tend to breed rootless, hostile ignoramuses.

On the other hand, the US’s aggressive, unjust foreign policy doesn’t exactly encourage patriotism in the rudderless young people churned out by the public schools.

Barack Obama, naturally, had no qualms about following his instincts. These were to implicate anti-tax patriots for the slaughter in Boston.

Also to crumble was the storyline floated by media—faithful as it is to fact and evidence (NOT)—about white supremacists. The “White supremacist’ narrative has collapsed in the Texas DA murder case.” Likewise it has proven baseless vis-à-vis Boston. Yet the president’s un-American little helpers had no qualms about having fun with it:

Witness your tax-supported, trusted NPR Journalist who felt no compunction about suggesting that the Boston terrorist attack was the handiwork of “right-wingers celebrating Columbine or Hitler’s birthday.”

UPDATE I: “Some immigrants kill.” Lloyd Green with the standard equivocating one can expect from a Bush baby:

America has digested newcomers from all over the world. It is our history and one of our strengths. It would be tragic if we made one of our virtues a vice and weakness when caution should be our guide.

UPDATE II: “The Economist” embarrassed itself before the fact, implicating “patriot groups” that have proliferated since their Good Guy got back in office:

“Mr Obama’s re-election and his support for immigration reform and gun-control legislation, however ill-fated, have enraged this extremist fringe. The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), a civil-rights organisation that tracks and exposes the activities of right-wing extremists, says that outfits of this kind have proliferated during his presidency, from around 150 in 2008 to an all-time record of 1,360 last year (see chart).
The SPLC estimates that of those about 1,000 could be classified as “hard-core”, and thus by implication capable of violence. Among recent incidents, it points to the murder of six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin by a neo-Nazi gunman last August and the rounding up, also last year, of a murderous militia group based in Georgia, which included several active-duty soldiers. According to prosecutors, the group, which called itself FEAR (Forever Enduring, Always Ready), had stockpiled $87,000 worth of weapons and explosives, and was plotting to overthrow the government through a campaign of terror and assassinations.”

Fisker, Tesla: Fisting* The Paying Public

Bush, Business, Fascism, Government, Intelligence, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Regulation, Sex, Socialism, Taxation, Technology

Last night we dined at a local eatery in our Washington State town. Parked outside the restaurant was the electric commie car, the Tesla Roadster.

Well of course, the pinkos who proliferate and rule my state are as dumb as they are dastardly.

DUMB because they fail to understand that, “Whether a vehicle is propelled by hydrogen-powered fuel cells or electricity, both electricity and hydrogen don’t magically materialize in the vehicle. They must first be generated. Be it coal, natural gas, nuclear or a hydroelectric dam, these cars are only as clean as the original source of energy that generated the vim that powers them.”

Other than to increase the consumption of gas, because people drive more in them, state-sponsorship of so-called fuel-efficient cars is a grand exercise in compulsory misallocation and waste of capital. It proves that the development of technologies is best left to the market, not to environmental bureaucracies. The electric car is a marvelous metaphor for the legislator’s attempt to shackle the ‘wayward’ consumer. Purchase one, and your best bet is to avoid straying too far from the socket in your garage, or, alternatively, drive with a very long extension cord, lest your vehicle turn into something not nearly as useful as Cinderella’s pumpkin at midnight. The benefits to the consumer are few, much less to the environment, unless a steady discharge of lead, cadmium, and nickel—the byproducts of batteries—is a blessing in disguise.

[“Commie Cars”]

DASTARDLY because the immoral pinko has no qualms about forcefully taking from taxpaying Americans to give to favored state-sponsored interests, like Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive.

The first “received a $465 million loan from the Department of Energy.”

Here, Republicans deserve to be reminded to hang their heads in shame. “The Department of Energy loan program was created in 2007 during the George Bush administration,” for the purpose of manufacturing the equivalent of the USSR’s “People’s Car.”

The second “has received $193 million of a $529 million Energy Department loan … Fisker Automotive — the electric-car maker that was granted a half-billion-dollar federal loan and on Friday dismissed about 75 percent of its remaining workforce — is purportedly facing a lawsuit from the same firm that sued the government-funded Solyndra company …Fisker laid off 160 of its roughly 210 employees Friday morning from its Anaheim, Calif., location.” (Fox News April 06, 2013.)

Don’t look to GOOGLE to serve you news straight up either. News about the bankruptcy or lack of viability of these subsidiaries of the state does not pop up first in related searches.

Writing in the Mises Institute’s indispensable Free Market, PETER G. KLEIN partially explains the dynamics that underpin these examples of American fascism (state-corporate collaborations). “Partially,” because Dr. Klein omits the private-property variable and philosophical fulcrum. (And the editor of TFM does Dr.Klein a disservice by giving the essay a title that is unexplained in the text: What on earth is “Tang”? Writers/editors should never assume their readers know what they’re talking about.) Explains Klein:

Today, when we look at private companies like Google,
Apple, and Facebook and marvel at their innovations, we
should remember that these companies are constantly
subject to market tests, and that the goods and services
they innovate must be accepted by consumers to be profitable. When they succeed, we know that they are creating value for society because consumers have chosen their products and services over others.
The goods and services produced by the Rand Corporation and the Pentagon and the National Science Foundation do not face any kind of market test. The goods and services they produce are valuable to the directors, and
members of Congress, and to the researchers themselves
who are on the payroll, but the value of this research is
determined arbitrarily.

Tesla and Fisker “produce” for the dim-witted Hollywood and D.C. elites, whom YOU are forced to finance. That’s it.

Fisker and Tesla are fisting* the paying public.

***

* Disclaimer: The reason I know about this practice is because I used to volunteer as an HIV/AIDS counselor in South Africa. Filthy and perverted, it’s an appropriate metaphor for robbery by state and special-interests.

Show Me The Way, Big Brother

Democrats, English, Government, Healthcare, Taxation, The State

Obama is sending the health care we have to hell in a handcart, for the ostensible benefit of less than ten percent of the population: the uninsured. Large-scale destruction in the purported service of the few.

This week came news that Big Brother will have to appoint “navigators” to show the beneficiaries of this bankrupting law the way: 21,000 navigators in California alone translates into 140,000 of them nation wide, a bureaucratic army that will swell the already swollen federal oink sector.

Navigator pay will run from $20 to $48 per hour, almost $100,000 a year for one federal oinker, for a total of between $5-10 billion, estimates Pat Buchanan.

In California alone navigators will cost between $871 million and $2 billion a year.

These navigators will likely be minorities who speak the languages of the welfariat for which the Obama Care has been designed.

Oh, and by the way, “Would you like to take the opportunity to register to vote?”

Since the chosen workers will be Obama’s pepes—community organizers, union folks and planned parenthood advisers—recruiting new Democrats will be of the essence.

Infernal Revenue Blues By Myron Pauli

BAB's A List, Barely A Blog, Ilana Mercer, Taxation

Barely a Blog contributor Myron Robert Pauli, Ph.D., says theoretical nuclear physics is far simpler than filing a US tax return.

As you enjoy the musings of BAB’s resident physicist, do consider a one-time contribution or a regular monthly contribution to BAB, without which you’d be bereft of Dr. Myron Pauli’s polemics. Read more about our pal and patron below. And do give generously. (The PayPal buttons are to your right). Our Myron is a genius, but he is no Sheldon Cooper when it comes to syntax. Posting a Myron piece means WORK for yours truly. Enjoy.

Infernal Revenue Blues
By Myron Pauli

This is the lovely time of the year where I get to file 12 tax returns – mine and my child’s and my late wife’s “estate” (which I had to take from my child and give back to my wife!) times federal and state times regular and estimated = 3 x 2 x 2 = 12. Lots of FUN!
Suppose you owned A shares of company B – and they spun off C shares of company D which then had stock splits (regular or reverse) making E shares which then acquired company F but subsequently merged with company G to now make H shares of company J with a payout of K from the merger. Calculate the capital gains tax! Think that is hard – what if the shares were in brokerage house L which became M and N and P? What if your deceased mother acquired some of the shares in multiple intervals over many years from since deceased brokerage house L? What if some of the companies had dividend reinvestment? Have you ever tried to find the 40 year old price of stocks that no longer exist? You don’t just need an accountant, you need an archeologist. I’ve done theoretical nuclear physics which is far simpler than this.
How about bonds? Some are subject to federal and state tax, some to federal but not state; some to state and not federal, some are double exempt. But what if it is a mixed-bond fund? And some which are exempt are subject to AMT – the “Alternative Minimum Tax”.
Ah – the AMT – designed in 1969 to catch a handful of “feeelthy rich” zillionaires with oil depletion allowances. For single people, the “feeelthy rich” start below $100,000 and no credit for dependents. I am a single parent with one child. What about single parents with 10 children – feeelthy rich, I suppose.
But “Saviour of the Poor” Obama is going after the tax loopholes! And what loophole is he after? Cash contributions to charity! Yessir, I give cash to the nefarious Salvation Army to give chowder to the homeless on frosty winters. The head of the Salvation Army earns under $100,000 – no doubt one of the feeelthy rich – and every cup of chowder consumed by the homeless takes needed revenue from Solyndra and their deserving lobbyists. And “conservatives” should be angry when I donate to frivolous fluff like the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and take away from such good deeds as dropping another cluster bomb on some Pakistani children.
And the “Fighters Against Big Government” Republicans? Well, half of them are trying to festoon the tax code with even more loopholes, and the others promote the Orwellian-named “Fair Tax” – a 30% sales tax on all spending. Such a draconian sales tax will necessitate the elimination of cash. It will not be sufficient for government to know my income and my investments – now they will have to know every dime I spend on socks, tuna, aspirin, and sex toys. Then picture what Nanny Bloomberg will do with the National Sales Tax – tax broccoli at the same rate as truffles? Bring on the lobbyists.
Benjamin Franklin said that nothing can be certain in this world except death and taxes. He failed to say which he feared the most!

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Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.